Elizabeth Chadwick (7 page)

“If it’s not the first time, then plainly you do not learn by your mistakes,” Fulke said, handing the weapon across.

William grasped it, bunching his fist around the smooth ash haft until the tendons stood out like whipcords on his wrist. Fulke saw from the look on William’s face that his brother had opted to be deaf to the remark.

When they rode into Alberbury several hours later, their horses lathered from the punishing pace Fulke had set, their father was waiting for them in the courtyard, his hands folded around his belt and his features grim.

Although he knew it was impossible, Fulke thought for a moment that news of the incident at Oswestry had outflown them. But then his father took a pace forward and, without asking why the horses had been ridden so hard in the summer’s burn, or what William was doing with a spear, said, “A messenger rode in at noon. King Henry is dead and we are summoned to swear allegiance to Richard.”

Palace and environs of Westminster, September 1189

“Fulke!” Theobald Walter engulfed his erstwhile squire in a bear hug, then held him away to look at him. “Holy Christ, have you grown again?” He shook his head. “No, it’s the dark color of that tunic making you look taller, and you’ve lost the puppy flesh.” He drew Fulke into the striped canvas pavilion that was serving as his lodging. “Are you ready for your knighting?”

“Yes, my lord,” Fulke said eagerly. “Two of my brothers are to receive their spurs too.”

“Your father must be proud.” Theobald smiled. “Three sons knighted by Coeur de Lion is a true mark of favor.”

Fulke agreed for form’s sake that it was. His father had been pleased but not ecstatic. “Richard may do me the honor of conferring knighthood on my sons, but it would be a greater honor by far if he would recognize our claim to Whittington, and that remains to be seen,” he had said testily.

“Is your mother here too?”

Fulke nodded and grinned. “And my aunt and the rest of my brothers. A coronation and a knighting are occasions too rare and grand to be missed. My mother has plans to empty the family strongbox in the markets and look up other wives who have come to trawl the booths and gossip.”

Theobald returned the grin. “Doubtless there will be some boasting too.” He signaled his junior squire, Adam, to pour wine. Fulke felt pleased and embarrassed. It would be the first time he and Theobald would drink man to man instead of as master and equerry.

“To King Richard.” Theobald raised his cup. “And to the glory of knighthood.” If there was any cynicism in the toast, he kept it well hidden.

“Amen.” Fulke echoed Theobald’s gesture before taking a swallow.

Lowering his cup, Theobald sat on the edge of his clothing coffer. “I suppose you came looking for Jean too.”

A smile lit in Fulke’s eyes. “In part, my lord, but I came to pay my respects to you first. Knowing Jean, he’s as likely to be in the kitchens or stables as here.”

Theobald chuckled. “Indeed, you know him well. Knighthood certainly has not bestowed any airs and graces on him.”

“Does he still intend taking the Cross?”

Theobald sobered. “Yes, he does. I shall miss him, but my brother Hubert will gain, since Jean is to travel in his retinue.” A note of exasperation entered Theobald’s voice. “The lad isn’t fired up with religious zeal like many of them—it’s that accursed wanderlust of his. He wants to see other lands and other customs; that’s his appetite in life.” Theobald looked at Fulke. “You weren’t tempted yourself?”

“A little, sir, but not enough to stitch a cross to my cloak. My brother William was all for going, but my father sat on him.”

Theobald snorted. “But in his youth, I think that your father would have gone. He was renowned for being a fire-eater. No one ever went up against Brunin FitzWarin with a lance if they could help it.”

Fulke felt a small glow of pride on his father’s behalf. “They still don’t.” He took another drink of wine. It was smooth as red silk and reminded him that Theobald’s tastes were impeccable. A little of the best rather than a largesse of dross. “He always claims that my mother put a stop to his adventurous wandering—that he found what he was looking for: a handsome, spirited woman with a dowry larger than her capacity to nag.”

Theobald chuckled. “One way of putting it, I suppose,” he said.

The tent flap opened and Theobald’s brother Hubert entered accompanied by a slender, balding man whom Fulke did not know. The latter was introduced to him as Robert le Vavasour, lord of Shipley and Warrington, a baron sharing similar interests to Theobald in their northern holdings.

“FitzWarin?” He looked Fulke up and down, a strange, almost envious expression in his eyes. “You must be one of Brunin’s whelps then.”

“You know my father, sir?” Fulke was discomforted by the man’s stare.

Le Vavasour’s smile twisted. “We were rivals in passing for your mother’s hand in marriage. He won—to be expected I suppose, when he was her father’s squire. It gave him an unfair advantage.”

Fulke said nothing, unsure how to respond.

Le Vavasour’s tone rang with bitterness. “I wed Jonetta de Birkyn instead. Unfortunately she did not vouchsafe me a crop of sons the like of your mother’s. Between all the miscarriages and failures before she died, she bore me a single daughter.”

“May your lady’s soul rest in peace,” Theobald said, crossing himself and bringing a measure of compassion to the conversation. Fulke followed his example, signing his breast and murmuring appropriately.

Le Vavasour folded his arms. “It had better,” he said brusquely. “I’ve spent good silver to have masses said in her name.” Thus dismissing his late wife, he turned to the subject of his daughter.

“I’ve brought Maude with me,” he said. “It’s never too soon to start looking for a likely match. She’s well dowered and she’ll be a beauty when she grows into her looks.” He gave Theobald a sly look. “I’m open to offers, Theobald.”

Theobald looked taken aback. “Are you indeed? How old is the lass? Surely she’s still a child?”

“Of legal age to wed. It was her twelfth year day at the Midsummer feast.”

“Jesu, Rob, I’m nearly old enough to be her grandsire!”

“There’s scarcely a gray hair in your head, and I’d rather have her wed a man who knows the ways of the world, who can fight and govern, rather than squander her on a stripling. Give me age and experience over the prettiness of youth any day.” He glanced at Fulke, without intending insult but emphasizing a point. “Our interests run together in the north. It would be a profitable union.”

Theobald shook his head. “I’m not looking to marry.”

“You should.” Le Vavasour nodded at Hubert. “Your brother’s not going to provide any legitimate offspring, is he?”

“Neither would I with a twelve-year-old,” Theobald retorted.

Le Vavasour unfolded his arms. “Well, if you have a change of heart, I’m open to offers from a man of your standing and means.” Smoothly he altered the subject, talking more generally of the coronation.

Fulke excused himself and threaded his way through the mass of tents and buildings in search of Jean. He decided he did not much care for Robert le Vavasour. The man had too high an opinion of himself and too vociferous an opinion on everything else.

Fulke finally found his friend in the kitchens being loudly berated by Marjorie.

“A thousand extra cups and two thousand pitchers!” she complained, her face pink and sweat-streaked from toiling over three cauldrons at once. “And that’s just the start. The old King would be turning in his grave if he could see the extravagance!” She waved a wooden ladle at Jean, then at Fulke, as if she thought it was their fault.

To Fulke the kitchens resembled his imagination of a hall in hell. Fires blazed beneath cauldrons, fireboxes full of charcoal gave off a simmering heat over which sauces were being stirred and pie fillings prepared. A mountain of dead chickens, ducks, and partridges obscured Fulke’s view of the oven where yet another batch of bread was being baked for the banquet. Several maids sat plucking the fowl and filling sacks with feathers. To one side, a huge wild boar awaited a butcher’s attention. Since the weather was fine, even the area outside the kitchens had been utilized and servants toiled by ragged torchlight to chop and stir and mold. No one was going to sleep tonight, and certainly not on the morrow.

“Richard knows the value of display,” Jean said to the woman as he acknowledged Fulke with a wave. “Give a man a full belly, make him feel important, and he will be more disposed to respond generously.”

“So we can expect an increase in our wages then?” Marjorie demanded sourly. Then with an impatient sound she relented enough to toss the young men a large square of gingerbread each from a pile stacked on a wooden tray. “Away with you.” She made a flicking gesture at the open door. “I ain’t got time to gossip tonight and you’re more hindrance than help.”

Jean swept a bow. “I’ll consider my ears boxed, mistress.”

She mockingly shook her fist at him but found a preoccupied smile before returning to her row of cauldrons simmering on a grid over one of the fireboxes.

Jean clapped Fulke’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you.” Fulke chewed on the gingerbread, relishing the honeyed spiciness of the sweetmeat. Between rotations of his jaw, he told Jean about his forthcoming knighthood.

“No longer Fulke, but ‘Sir’ Fulke,” Jean teased with a grin. His own knighthood had taken place two years earlier, but, unlike Fulke, he had no inheritance and he served the Walter family for his daily bread.

Fulke laughed. “I doubt that anyone will grace me with that title.”

“Aren’t you going to have a squire then?”

“Yes, my brother Ivo, and he certainly won’t address me as ‘sir.’”

Outside the kitchens, they paused beside a cauldron of wine and water into which a kitchen boy was scattering cups of wheat and barley to make a jellied frumenty.

“What will you do once you’re knighted?”

“Mayhap I will spend a season on the tourney circuit.”

“You do not desire to take the Cross then?” Jean indicated the red linen insignia stitched to his cloak in token of the vow he had taken to join King Richard on crusade.

“A little, but I am no burning zealot, and my family lands come first.” Fulke looked at his friend. “For you it does not matter so much, and I know how much your feet itch if they stay in one place too long.”

Jean grinned at the assessment. “I need to know what lies on the other side of the hill, be it grass or desert.”

“Usually it’s just another hill,” Fulke said.

By unspoken and mutual consent, they set off in the direction of one of the alehouses that served the palace workers and off-duty guards. Finding a recently vacated trestle, they sat down and ordered a jug of mead to wash away the heat of the gingerbread.

“My father says that Richard is going to put England up for sale,” Fulke said as they filled their cups. “That every office, lordship, and sheriffdom will be taken from its present holder and sold to the highest bidder.”

“That is likely true,” Jean nodded. “Lord Theobald’s Uncle Ranulf has been stripped of the shrievalty of Yorkshire and made to pay a fine of fifteen thousand pounds for abuses of the office.”

“Abuses?” Fulke thought of the dignified gray-haired man. “That’s a contrived accusation, surely!”

“In part, yes. Ranulf cannot be everywhere at once and he deputized most of the work to his steward—who’s been fined hard too. Minor sins have been inflated out of all proportion.” Jean rubbed his thumb over the surface of his cup. “All Ranulf’s power came from King Henry and Richard wants to show that his word is now the law of the land. The de Glanville family is not to be flattened, but it has been warned not to flaunt its power.”

“What does Lord Theobald say to all this?”

Jean shrugged. “Very little. He’s astute enough to know when to hold his peace. His brother Hubert dwells in Richard’s camp and he remains with John’s retinue—so they have a foot in each camp. Until King Richard marries and begets an heir, Prince John is his successor.”

Fulke grimaced. Richard was already two and thirty. He had been betrothed to Princess Alais of France for more than Fulke’s lifetime and still there was no sign that a wedding was imminent, much less a dynasty. Moreover, going on crusade was scarcely a guarantee of longevity. “What about Prince Arthur?” he asked, grasping at straws. Geoffrey, who had been next in line to Richard, had died in an accident at a tourney soon after John’s ignominious return from Ireland but not before he had left his wife pregnant with a son.

Jean shook his head. “Arthur of Brittany is only two years old. The lords will not choose a foreign-raised infant above John. Whatever his faults, he is still Richard’s brother.

“Then I wish Richard a long and fruitful reign.” Fulke signed his breast to give the intention more weight. “What worries me is who will have control of Richard’s lands while Richard is away saving Jerusalem? Who will save England from John?”

“Lord Theobald says that Queen Eleanor will be made a regent for certain. Hubert told him that Richard will not give John any power because he does not trust him to hold steady to any ambition but his own.”

“I hope that is true,” Fulke said grimly, remembering how it had been in Ireland and imagining John’s vindictiveness and tyranny let loose on a wider scale with larger funds. And if Richard should die on crusade…he gave an involuntary shudder.

***

From the alehouse, Jean and Fulke strolled companionably to the tents that housed the FitzWarin retinue. There was not a patch of green to be seen between the host of canvas shelters belonging to the lords and vassals who had come to Westminster for the coronation and to swear allegiance to the new King.

“Will your father appeal for Whittington?” Jean asked as they approached the FitzWarin pavilions. Brunin’s banner fluttered from a spear planted in the ground outside the larger of the two tents.

Fulke nodded. “It was his first thought as soon as he heard that King Henry was dead. He’s been counting the silver ever since because he knows as well as every man here that Richard needs money for the crusade, and he’s open to all offers.” His expression clouded. “But it rankles with him more than I can tell, Jean, that what is ours by honor and by right should have to be bought like a bolt of cloth at a market.”

Their conversation was interrupted by an unholy shriek as a girl raced past them clutching a ball of stitched leather pieces. Fulke received an impression of flying silver-gilt plaits and a blue dress kilted through her belt to allow for running. Dainty shoes of tan goatskin adorned her flashing feet and she was laughing as she ran.

“Give it back!” Around the corner of the tents pounded three boys in full indignant cry: Fulke’s youngest brothers Alain and Richard with their friend Audulf de Bracy.

“Not unless you let me play!” She whirled around, the ball tucked under her arm, and flicked her plaits over her shoulders. Her flat chest was heaving. A pretty silver brooch adorned the neck opening of her gown and a border of exquisite embroidery spoke of a rank at least as high as Fulke’s.